The $40-million project is expected to increase the refinery’s production capacity from 45,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) to 60,000 bpsd on completion.

It will be funded from TOR’s internally generated funds.

Although TOR has a production capacity of 45,000 bpsd, it is currently producing 28,000 bpsd as a result of the breakdown of one of its furnaces at the CDU four years ago.

The signing of the agreement has, therefore, paved the way for the three companies — Osun Engineering, a South Korean firm, and its partners, Intertek Ghana Limited and TG Enterprises Company Limited — to carry out a technical evaluation of the facility next month and redesign the current structure to a 60,000bpsd capacity production unit.

Expansion of facilities

 The General Manager in charge of Technical Services at TOR, Mr Samuel Yeboah Adomako, told the Daily Graphic in Tema yesterday that the refinery was seeking to expand its facilities to meet the national consumption of 85,000 barrels per day.

“Our projection is to reduce the importation margin of finished petroleum products, improve profitability and further reduce pressure on our local currency. This is one of the major reasons the refinery must work consistently,” he added.

The refinery currently supplies about 50 per cent of petroleum products on the Ghanaian market.

According to Mr Adomako, with the present development, a future minimal upgrade of facilities would enable the refinery to produce at the 85,000 bpsd capacity to meet the national demand.

He noted that refineries all over the world operated on economies of scale, hence the bigger the production unit, the higher the revenue a country was able to generate.

New facility

Mr Adomako said feasibility studies had been conducted to build a new refinery, adding that  the facility would be an export-oriented refinery and that private sector participation would be encouraged.

The TOR tumbled to a sorry state in 2009 from huge debts but a management re-engineering has seen it bounce back.